Tag Archives: The Boring Company

“Nothing compares to the simple pleasure of a bike ride”–John F. Kennedy.

I wonder how JFK would have felt about an electric bike ride. Yes, an eBike. They are coming, as everything, but everything, seems to be adding technology.

While you’re reading about all this week’s future-related news, don’t forget that you can subscribe to Seeking Delphi™ podcasts on iTunes, PlayerFM, or YouTube(audio with slide show) and you can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

“”The moon is a friend for the lonesome to talk to.”–Carl Sandberg

If you circled the moon–alone–you’d probably wind up talking to it. And tonight we found out who Elon Musk plans to send around the moon as the first SpaceX lunar tourist. Undoubtedly, everbody will want a piece of him.

While you’re reading about all this week’s future-related news, don’t forget that you can subscribe to Seeking Delphi™ podcasts on iTunes, PlayerFM, or YouTube(audio with slide show) and you can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook

“Those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future.” – John F Kennedy

What is a futurist? I get asked that all the time. No, we don’t have crystal balls. It’s not so much about predicting the future as it is about helping steer humanity to a better future. This week’s news of the future kicks off with a new video by British futurist Ray Hammond that provides a succinct historical perspective on the study of the future.

While you’re reading about all this week’s future-related news, don’t forget that you can subscribe to Seeking Delphi™ podcasts on iTunes, PlayerFM, or YouTube(audio with slide show) and you can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook

FutureThinking–From Roger Bacon to Alvin Toffler and Ray Kurzweill, Ray Hammond’s new video on The History of Futurists and Futurology provides a thoughtful perspective on thinking about things to come.

–And from last year’s annual meeting of The Association of Professional Futurists, my Seeking Delphi podcast, redux, asking the practitioners themselves, What is a Futurist?

The Human Condition–Millennium Project CEO and State of The Future lead author, Jerome Glenn, says that we have done better than most people expected. He goes so far as to say, in the latest Seeking Delphi™ interview linked below, that “we are winning as a species.” He does acknowledge critical issues that could derail the trajectory of progress, however.

While you’re reading about all this week’s future-related news, don’t forget that you can subscribe to Seeking Delphi™ podcasts on iTunes, PlayerFM, or YouTube(audio with slide show) and you can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook

Elon Musk’s The Boring Company won a bid to provide underground transportation from downtown Chicago to O’Hare international airport. According to Musk, the high-speed electric vehicle system should be completed within 3 years.

“My mentality is that of a samurai. I would rather commit seppuku than fail.”–Elon Musk

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”–Alan Kay

Technology was everywhere in 2017. And everywhere technology went, Elon Musk was sure to lead. Perhaps we should paraphrase Alan Kay. The best way to predict the future, is to watch Elon. If anybody is inventing it, it’s him. Tesla, Solar City, SpaceX, Neuralink, Hyperloop. If it involved renewable energy, autonomous vehicles, space commerce, transhumanism, or warnings about artificial intelligence (lot’s of warnings), it probably involved Elon.

With that, I name Elon Musk, in total, our first Future Story of The Year, for 2017. Here’s a very brief history of his year, along with some of the other top stories from 2017.

While you’re reading about it all, don’t forget that you can subscribe to Seeking Delphi™ podcasts on iTunes or PlayerFM, and you can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook

So…how many new technology ventures will he create in 2018, as he continues to invent the future? I’d put the over/under at 2 1/2.

Other top stories of the Year.

Artificial intelligence, CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing, self-driving cars, Bitcoin and blockchain, reversing aging and the future of work, were all frequently in the news in 2017. Somewhat less visible were stories about laboratory grown meat, reversing aging, hypersonic weapons, 3D printing and advanced drone technology. Here are few top story lists from other sources.

“If the government regulates against use of drones or stem cells or artificial intelligence, all that means is that the work and the research leave the borders of that country and go someplace else.”–Peter Diamandis

Automation and artificial intelligence continue to be hot topics–and getting hotter. I’ve heard more than one call to limit or ban them in the last week. That won’t work, for the very reason Peter Diamandis states in the quote above. There are over 200 countries in the world; there is no global governance that can impose the same restrictions on all of them. We have no choice but to proceed. Proceed with caution, of course. Proceed with our eyes open and with a close monitoring of the consequences. But proceed we must.

Google’s director of research, Peter Norvig, said that he does not buy the doomsday scenarios of rampant, runaway artificial intelligence destroying mankind. Speaking in an interview with CNBC, though, he did warn that massive workplace disruption is coming. “The pace may be so rapid as to create disruptions. We need to find ways to mitigate that,” he said.